Fahrenheit 101: The Paranoid Android
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
1
59
354
Trip End
Ongoing
Somewhere,
China
Sunday, December 4, 2005
When mailing a package out of the country, for example, it is illegal to send a package using newspapers as packaging materials. I guess they don't want anyone seeing the crap that their government-controlled journalists write. Jeremy, my hiking buddy from Yading, learned how to read Chinese, but almost regrets it every time he reads the newspapers: "it took me three years to learn enough characters to read, and now all I can read is just propaganda and lies." So, when mailing a package, I had to go across the street, buy a couple rolls of toilet paper, remove the newspaper, and repackage everything using toilet paper.
Now, some books my folks sent to me are waiting in customs
Chinese Rulers
. As they sit there, they want to know the names of the books in Chinese and where they were purchased. They also want an offical seal and explanation from WWF and some money (read: bribe that has nothing to do with the costs of the books) to release the package.At Noah's last night, I was talking with Jenny (whose name is changed to protect her identity), whose calls and e-mails are monitored. The e-mails usually take two weeks to arrive after they are sent. Many of her Tibetan friends have returned from India, where the Dalai Lama resides, and are regularly interrogated. "I'm just living a normal life here." says Jenny, who is not trying to subvert the government, as far as I know.
Today, a New York Times article disclosed that China still uses torture in its prisons and work camps. I could not access that article--blocked--despite being able to access most other usual websites. My sister had to send it to me, encrypted. I'd better be good here or I might succumb to Chinese Water Torture.
Also, a huge benzene spill, fifty miles long, flowed through Harbin, as a factory exploded upstream. This was suppressed until some city journalists and environmentalists realized that all the fish were dead and there was a serious reason why no one could drink tap water.
The government is now saying that those responsible will suffer repurcussions--probably Chinese Water Torture--and is providing drinking water to the city of several million. Perhaps this disaster may help to foment change in China.
Until then, those people who sit at their computer desktops blocking websites or those who torture prisoners late at night, and those who suppress information about serious environmental disasters--you are the Paranoid Androids.
